


How To Teach Your Human

by kittydesade



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragons are matriarchal. Toothless has someone he wants Hiccup to meet. It goes about like you might expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Teach Your Human

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qwerty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/gifts).



The worst moments of his life had been when he was stuck in that stupid pit and couldn't get out. Toothless, as he was now called, couldn't imagine not being able to fly. Couldn't remember a time when he couldn't fly, or at least that was what he claimed when the others asked him about it, usually during training. His friend in the arena who the other humans called Torch hadn't been able to get himself lit once and plaintively asked the rest of them, couldn't anyone else remember learning to fly, and it wasn't his fault. Everyone shook their heads, so it wasn't just him. 

But the point was, he loved flying, and those days when he hadn't been able to get more than a few tail-lengths off the ground were torture.

"So that's why you've got to come meet Mom," he explained to Hiccup again. Not that he was nervous. Not that Hiccup understood him. Silly, squishy Hiccup, with no tail and no proper ears, an untidy crest that was too thin and short to stand up properly and nothing in the way of claws or teeth to speak of, it was amazing that he could survive anything at all. But then, Hiccup had a mind that looked at the trees and the rocks and the vines and made all kinds of machines to do his fighting for him, so maybe that was all right anyway. "I mean, you fixed my tail. You made it so I can fly again, she'll _love_ you."

"Awwrr," Hiccup said. 

Toothless sighed and turned his attention back to where they were going. No, his mother _would_ like Hiccup. If she didn't eat him. But Toothless wasn't going to tell Hiccup that. He just had to figure out a way to introduce him right.

"..." Hiccup said. Poor Hiccup. It always made him nervous when Toothless took them off in a direction they hadn't gone before, and you'd think he would know to trust his dragon by now. It was the language barrier that did it. Toothless couldn't explain things to him in a proper language, and he couldn't make his mouth move right to make the human language. He couldn't even hear all the sounds Hiccup made when _his_ mouth was moving, at least he assumed sounds were coming out. They came out of him a lot anyway. So, he had to make pictures in the dirt, like Hiccup did.

He sighed and banked a little, taking them on a more scenic route to his Mom's lair. "Look! You like trees, don't you?" There were enough of them around the village, and Hiccup spent a lot of his time in the forest away from his people and his friends. "Aren't those some beautiful trees?"

Hiccup clutched tighter to the back-strap thing and didn't say anything. After another couple tail-lengths Toothless realized that was because he had his face pressed into his back.

"It's not that bad," but Toothless did pull up and come to a landing at a run so Hiccup could stop and be nervous into the bushes. "You'll be hungry after that," he noted, folding himself down to wait. Hiccup didn't lift his head to reply. 

After a lot of spewing and some coughing noises, Hiccup turned and tottered back to lean against the saddle and catch his breath. Poor Hiccup. He tucked his wing over him to give him a bit of shade and comfort, wondering if his dirt-drawings of his mother hadn't been clear enough. Hiccup probably expected she had some kind of a name, forgetting that Toothless hadn't been Toothless until Hiccup kept calling him that. Dragons didn't need names, they knew exactly who they were. 

It had to be the destination that was making Hiccup shiver. It couldn't be the journey. It wasn't as though they didn't fly pretty much everywhere these days, and Hiccup had taken Toothless to his home to meet his Mom, so wasn't it natural that Toothless take him home to meet his Mom, too? At least, Toothless assumed the giant swollen human who stomped around Hiccup's den was his Mom, though he wondered how long before the egg came and if all the hair on her face would keep it warm before hatching. He hadn't been able to properly ask, on account of them not having the right tools to speak dragon. 

Maybe Hiccup could make some. Proper ears and a tail, and wings, and a proper face. Toothless tried to figure out where he'd put it all and then gave it up; the made-up tail and face would have to be the size of Hiccup's den to fit all the workings inside. 

"It won't be all bad," Toothless muzzled Hiccup's crest a bit, putting it back into order. Or what passed for order with Hiccup's crest, which was always untidy and sticking out at ends. "She's really very nice once you get to know her. And she's not like some of the others, and I'm not convincing you at all, am I." The truth was, he wasn't convincing himself. His Mom could be a bit of a pain in the tail sometimes. Though then again, Hiccup's Mom could be a pain in the tail, too, with all the stomping and yelling. 

A silly human, who now was pacing up and down and waving his arms and babbling at great length. "Augh!" Hiccup said. And, "No-oh, why!" And several other things that faded in and out of his hearing. Toothless sighed, waiting for him to finish. And getting ready to catch him if he didn't watch where he was going, because he still wasn't used to that new foot of his. Toothless understood; it had taken him a while to get used to the tail thing. And Hiccup had looked out for him while he did, so now it was his turn to catch Hiccup as his iron paw got twisted up in a tree root and he toppled forward. 

"Calm down," Toothless muzzled him over to sit against his side. "You're going to hurt yourself."

Hiccup muttered, still gesturing. It was that last set of gestures that did it, and the tone and some words that Toothless now understood. 'Dragon' being one of them. "It's not like that at all..." Toothless sighed. "Not that you'll believe me, but she's nothing like the great old one." Or as his Mom used to call him, the great old lazylump. 

But Hiccup couldn't understand him. Toothless sighed and muzzled his crest until Hiccup calmed down. "Trust me, okay? You'll like this."

Words might not be intelligible to either of them, but tone they could understand just fine. Hiccup sat for a few moments longer and then drew himself up and looked over at Toothless. Okay, he said, or might as well have said, the tone was about the same. Okay, he'd go along with this. He trusted Toothless, just as Toothless trusted him. Even if sometimes they had to panic and flap about because new things were scary, Toothless reminded himself. He'd done the same thing when Hiccup had given him his tail, and look how that worked out.

"Ready?" he asked, nudging Hiccup onto his back again. Hiccup replied with a pat on the back and leaning forward to get into flying position, though he didn't sound too ready. Toothless took it slow, so Hiccup would have time to prepare himself. Meeting a friend's family, he admitted to himself, was never an easy thing anyway.

The last part of the way they had to go on foot, since this approach took them through a thick canopy of trees, half the trunks as wide around as Toothless's neck and covered in wide-leafed vines. The trees were thicker than Toothless remembered it when he'd last been home, but that had been a long time ago.

Hiccup seemed to be taking well to the new plants and animals, at least. Everything got poked with a paw, everything, and Toothless had to pull him back to his side more than once to keep him from getting chomped by a disagreeable ground dweller. He didn't know if all of those holes in the leaf piles and under the roots of the great trees were occupied, but he wasn't going to let Hiccup take unnecessary chances, either. One time he turned around and there Hiccup was, poking things again. Toothless had to intervene with a snap and a growl.

"Sorry," the Root-Binder muttered. "Sorry. Didn't know he was yours."

"Have a little more respect," Toothless snorted, and looked over at Hiccup. "And _you_ should be more careful." Though Hiccup did look scared now, all white-eyed and with his forepaws curled up. Good. Hiccup said something, but Toothless ignored him in favor of continuing on and dragging the silly human along with a swipe of the thick part of his tail.

The smells and sounds of the forest were so familiar, Toothless almost forgot that he had a human with him. He lifted his head and swayed it back and forth, smiling and purring to himself as he caught the old scents of the trees, the _right_ scents. The human village was nice, but it didn't smell right most of the time, and even the woods around it didn't smell like the proper mix of animals and plants. This was _home._

A tiny hand patted his side, then started to scratch. His head ducked in pleasure. "You keep that up and we might as well just flop right here," he teased, though he didn't mean it. Hiccup smiled and said something about how nice it was here. Toothless agreed. He'd spent a good couple of summers playing hide and chase around the vines and roots, and learning to fly was easier than anywhere else he'd heard of when you had a nice bed of moss and leaves to fall into. Not that he would say that to anyone. "Except you, Hiccup," he muzzled Hiccup's crest and purred when he got scratched again. Hiccup could know because who was he going to tell?

They walked along until they started to hear the long, low bellow of a large dragon breathing easy. Sleeping rhythms, and Toothless winced a little when he realized they'd be waking his Mom up. She was cranky when she first woke up in the mornings. Maybe she was just lying down for an afternoon nap?

As long as she didn't try to eat Hiccup. That'd be a disaster.

"Toothless..." Hiccup said, in the voice that wanted to know what was going on, that didn't like where they were headed, close to the voice he had when they were speeding somewhere and Toothless knew where they were going but he hadn't been able to explain to Hiccup. 

He sighed. This time, at least, he'd explained already, hadn't he? Or he'd tried to, after the adventure with the great old one maybe Hiccup _did_ think a bigger dragon meant a big threat. "You'll be fine," he nudged Hiccup ahead of him on the path. "Just keep going, I'm right behind you."

Hiccup clearly wasn't so easy about the whole thing, and stayed balky until he tripped over another root and almost fell down the hill at the start of the clearing. Then he yelped and jumped back, scrabbling to hide behind Toothless's left wing. Big baby. 

"Mom?" he called out, bellying down to the ground himself in case she was upset at being woken up. He'd almost gotten his tail chewed off a couple of times for that. "Hey, Mom? I'm back... I mean, I'm back for a visit. Not to stay, I've got my own hunting grounds over up by the mountains, and..."

His mother rolled and sighed heavily. "What is it?" she asked, and yawned. 

Hiccup refused to step forward, despite nudging with paw and wing. "Well. There's someone I want you to meet. Come on, it's not that bad..." 

The old dragon heaved herself upright and looked over blearily at her son, swaying her head to take in all angles of approach. "What someone? I don't see..." She sniffed. Nostrils flared and ears pricked, and her head snaked around to peer muzzle-to-muzzle with Hiccup, knocking Toothless out of the way. "What's this? Why did you bring this home? Is it edible..."

"MOM!" 

Toothless bristled. His mother bristled and reared backwards, or her head did anyway. Hiccup dropped to the ground behind Toothless and made himself as small as he could, which wasn't the worst idea when you came up against a large predator. Only this wasn't a predator who was going to eat Hiccup, this was his Mom. Now he just had to convince his Mom of that. 

"Mom, he's not food. This is Hiccup, that's what his people call him. He's my friend. He saved my life, a couple of times. We fly together..." 

Toothless got a really strange look for that one.

"Not like that, Mom. He sits on my back and he helps me fly, with this," he brought his tail around and waggled it to show her. She craned her neck over and sniffed it, eyes flicking from his tail to his face and back again. "He's really smart. He figured out how to make me a tail and make him a paw, see..." He nudged Hiccup to the front again, so his Mom could see Hiccup's latest version of his iron paw. Hiccup looked like he wanted to throw up again, but he hobbled forward a couple of steps and reached out his hand in greeting. After several long seconds where Toothless kept himself from saying anything that would set either of them off, his mother leaned her head in and touched noses with him. Well, nose to paw. Limb. 

"He smells funny," his mother sniffed, and flopped back down again.

Hiccup deflated onto the ground, and Toothless shrugged, turning a grin on his friend. "Pretty good for a first impression!"

"--Gurk," Hiccup agreed.

  


  


  


By nightfall Hiccup had relaxed enough to sit up against Toothless's side while his meat cooked. Toothless's mother expressed her disdain for cooking perfectly good meat by snorting a puff of super-hot flame which, by some magical (not at all) coincidence happened to land right where Hiccup had been building his fire. Toothless ducked his head and tried not to laugh while he made sure his friend hadn't gotten singed. Hiccup looked scared at first, then seemed to understand the older dragon's studied innocence and even laughed. A little.

"He's not so bad, once you get to know him," Toothless yawned, shifting one paw that had started to fall asleep before the rest of him. "He's really useful."

"Useful," his mother snorted again, this time with more breath and less flame. "You've been spending too much time with those humans."

Toothless ducked his head further down and didn't say anything, though he did bite back a sigh. At least it was the first time his mom had said anything against the humans. After everyone had decided they weren't going to try to hurt, maim, or eat each other his mom had gone over and settled back down where she'd been laying and Hiccup had climbed over Toothless to make himself a nest a little ways away, close enough that he could still see but far enough away that he felt safe. Toothless couldn't blame him, really, but it hadn't been a promising start.

It eased up as the day went on and Toothless realized he'd have to feed both of them, because they hadn't eaten for most of the day. And then Hiccup made that face when he was trying to be nice but wasn't really happy, and Toothless remembered about the putting meat on fire and now they were sitting with mostly full bellies, happy under the stars.

"Are you staying?" 

Toothless lifted his head again. He'd almost fallen asleep that time, and he thought everyone had, but his mom was awake and looking at him. Toothless shrugged, careful not to dislodge Hiccup too much. "I can't. Hiccup and his family need me. And I need him, Mom, he helps me fly."

She didn't understand that as well as he'd hoped. Or she didn't want to believe that her darling son was maimed for life. She hadn't been there for that final fight against the great old one, and she hadn't seen what the humans would do, and if Toothless hadn't been there he wasn't sure he would have believed it either. But they'd worked together like a swarm of groundlings, and they'd taken the great dragon down. Toothless had told her the whole story, with Hiccup chiming in once he realized what they were talking about. She looked at the human with new respect after that, though she still didn't give him the benefit of 'useful.'

"It'd be good if you could come back more often," she said, rolling back against a stand of trees and stretching her hind legs out. "I'm going to need help soon."

Toothless sat up a bit, rolling Hiccup into his meat dinner ("Ay!") and craning his neck around. "What do you mean?" But he saw it even as he asked. The shiny surface of an egg, still hardening in the warmth, small but intact. Toothless's mouth fell open in delight, and Hiccup snuck around his wing to see what his friend was staring at. 

"I might need your help, soon," his mother said, chuckling. Toothless dug his claws in to keep from jumping around for joy. "Do you think you and your friend can manage that?"

Hiccup had already come out from the protection of his friend's larger body to take a look at the egg. Toothless's mom gave him a dubious and very much warning look, but after not much nudging from Toothless, Hiccup put his hands behind his back and stopped a good distance away. Both dragons settled back down so the human could have a look. 

"I think he'll be all right," Toothless yawned, stretching out a wing so Hiccup would have some place to nest when he got tired of looking at the new thing. "I think it'll be fine, now." 

Now that the dragons weren't being hunted and attacked. Now that the great old one wasn't running them ragged looking for food anymore. It was the best season the dragons had had in generations. Toothless purred as he started to drift. Yeah. Everything was going to be fine.


End file.
